My Past, My Future, Only The Present Matters
by One Wish Magic
Summary: Alice's past had always been a mystery to her, a black hole in her memory. But when she finally found the information she sought it did nothing but present more questions. She wonders what would it have been like to have been human Jasper/Alice small fluf


**This was originally meant to be a story about Alice wondering what it would be like to be human since she cannot remember. But when i put pen to paper, this is what came out. It is a little darker than my orginal idea. So, i dunno. It's not my usual style. Make of it what you will.  
I am well aware that i have captured neither character very well, i will work on that for future reference.  
I don't own anything at all.**

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(Alice Pov)

The rain fell like glistening silver bullets around me. It splashed into already existent puddles; rippling the water as, in ever expanding circles it rushed away from the disturbance. The cold easterly wind blew, catching hold of my scarf and making the tassels dance in it's wake. The clouds rolled by at an exaggerated pace overhead; the mass of black and Grey churning ominously. There was a storm brewing.

Unlike the last scattering of people who made their way quickly to their vehicles; umbrellas, coats and even in one case, this mornings newspaper held protectively over their heads. I was unaffected by the weather. The coldness did not chill me; indeed I could have be wearing one of my summer dresses instead of the only visually appropriate coat and scarf I wore now, and still the wind would feel like nothing more than silk brushing against my skin. The rain did not wet me; it simply rolled off the granite surface of my skin, and collected like small glistening gems in my hair. The only thing that was affected by it's onslaught was my clothes, and, as slightly peeved as I was, I knew that I could have them dry again in no time if I decided to run. But, the biggest difference of all between me and every other person here, the one thing that separated us so greatly. They were human, I was a vampire, and to my mind I always had been.

I was surrounded, rows upon rows of Grey stone structures jutting up from the ground. Each different from it's neighbor, some big and grand, others decorative; even in one or two places the traditional headstone was replaced by an angle upon a podium. But on the whole, most were simplistic. They were all of a varying degree of age. Some were unkept and ravaged by the passed years, while others bore blossoming flowers and looked to be fairly recent. But for all their differences, each and every one shared a common purpose; to signify, to celebrate, to mark the passing of and to proclaim. Each one marked a persons life, or in some cases, multiple peoples. Their beginnings and their ends. One life, the only life they would ever know.

I felt like I was trespassing upon the grave of another's loved one. Sitting where I had no place. But it was obvious that no-one had visited this grave in a long time, if it had ever been visited at all. It was small and looked to have been quickly and roughly crafted. It's jagged edges were very prominent when compared to the smooth rounded shape of it's neighboring headstone. It was wild and overgrown, the long grass almost engulfing it completely, the reeds wrapped tightly around it's base seemed to be the only thing keeping the stone erect. It held the most basic of inscriptions, the writing shaky and almost scrawl like; '_Mary Alice Brandon 1901-1920'_

She might as well have been a stranger to me, a human girl from another's life, as I had no recollection of ever being her. Not even the distorted image that my family had, like trying to see through a clouded haze. Nothing. Just darkness. All consuming, perpetual darkness.

What would it have been like to have been human? To shiver when it was cold, what a curious sensation that would have been. To get wet in the rain, to run and feel tired. To breath out of necessity instead of habit, feeling air rush into my lungs and then back out again when I exhaled, how glorious and refreshing would it feel? Or would it feel glorious and refreshing at all? Would I forget to do it like I sometimes did now, or was it instinct, just like hunting? What would it have felt like to blush out of embarrassment? To feel the beat of a heart inside of me! Pumping blood around my body, allowing me to live, beating faster when I was scared and slower when I was relaxed. The very core behind my existence, a life sustaining organ!

What was it like to eat? To feel hunger instead of thirst. For my stomach to rumble when I needed to eat, just like Bella's did, instead of the burn in the back of my throat as my thirst grew. What was it like to be enticed by food? To find the aroma inviting instead of repulsing. Never once could I recall a morsel of food passing my lips. Of course I would have had to have ate at some point, but I just couldn't envision it. What did food actually taste like? Surly not like it tasted to us. Had I liked and disliked certain things or had I just ate anything that was offered to me?

What was it like to sleep? Was it like the crushing and oppressing darkness that had been my life, or would I dream? There was another question. What was it like to dream? To enter a world where anything was possible, a place projected by the subconscious mind that allowed people to find answers, truth or clarity. Or would my dreams have been nonsense like with no meaning behind them at all?

So much I had missed out on, and so much I would never experience. Bella was all to eager to become one of us, and I was just as eager to have her as my sister. But just for a moment, maybe a moment of madness on my part, I had to agree with Rosalie. She should savor the time she had left, prolong it even, For once it was gone it was irredeemable. I would trade a decade in this life for even just one day of human life. To experience what I could never remember feeling and know what I could never remember knowing.

I traced the lettering with my finger, even now tying to familiarize the name, to link it to myself somehow. But the more I thought about it, the more anything I might have remembered seemed to slip further and further from my grasp. But there was nothing to remember, not even the pain of my transformation.

My thoughts turned to Rosalie, what she wouldn't give to be human. To have married another human, had children and then grown old together. All she had ever wanted, and all that had ever been denied to her. Of course she had Emmett, and could not deny how happy he made her, but there was always going to be something, right at the back of her mind nagging away. Both of them understood and both of them excepted. He would have been the sort of man that she would have fallen in love with in any lifetime. Their love was the real thing, they were just not able to expand that love greater than the two of them.

My thoughts then turned to Esme, how she had tried to take her own life because the life of her tiny baby had been taken from her. She had us now, an adoptive family to whom she could play mother. But surly it had to be a poor substitute? Or perhaps a good one, she had in a sense what Rosalie did not, and as a comparison Esme was much happier than Rose.

I had never felt the maternal instinct that my adoptive mother and sister did. Maybe if I had ever held a child in my arms, whether my own or not, I would feel different.

I thought sourly of my real mother I imagined her face withered and hag like as she sat in a rocking chair, surrounded by darkness. I imagined myself as an infant, hidden and lost in the darkness; crying, screaming for any small comfort. Her face never changed as I continued to cry, she ignored me, or rather, to her as to me now, Mary Alice Brandon never existed.

I drew my knees up to my chin, wrapping my arms around them as I hugged them close to my body. Resting my head upon them, I closed my eyes, the tearless sobs wracking my body at random intervals. A feeling of loneliness washed over me. Just like in my imagined scene, I was alone.

I had no beginning, t least in my mind. I had always been what I am now. How could anything exist without a beginning? Did it make me lesser? In some way inferior?

Darkness, my only human memory. I had evaded James had I not? In much the same fashion as Bella had last summer, the two of us, the only two people to ever escape a tracker. _I _may not have remembered, but _he_ had. How quint that because of him I was here now.

Was I a curse? Some sort of bad omen? Was that why my mother had shunned me, disowned me. Because of my visions? Of course it had been, that was why she had put me in the asylum, but why? Had my visions hurt people? Was that it, or was it simply because they were different, unnatural? Whatever the reasoning, in my mind it in no way excused my treatment.

What about the vampire that had changed me, my creator, the old one? How and why had he left me wan it was so unheard of? Was I really so much of a burden? Or had a been a curse upon him too? A blight to his existence.

I didn't know and no-one could provide me with the answers I sought. Finding out about my past had not pacified me as I thought it would. There was no euphoric feeling of having belonged somewhere, to finally know of my life before my transformation. No. Nothing of the sorts, the only thing this revelation had brought about was even more questions. Unanswerable ones.

Perhaps it was better that I did not remember my human life. After all my life now was all that I really cared about, nothing tied me to the life of Mary Alice Brandon.

I suppose none of it mattered really, I had existed before I knew all of this, perfectly happily in fact, albeit with gaping holes in my memory. My first real memory was the one I counted as the beginning of my life, seeing Jasper's face and knowing that I had to find him.

This life was my second chance, to have what I had never had before. Here I had a mother and a father, or as close to as I had ever known, a wonderful husband and brothers and sisters for whom I cared for deeply. They were my real family and this was my real life, nothing else mattered, or it shouldn't anyway. But still, I would always wonder, what would it have been like?

For a while I remained sitting, thinking and waiting. Waiting for what I didn't rightly know, a sign perhaps, all I knew was that I would be sure when it arrived.

I jumped a little when the vision burst behind the eyelids of my still closed eyes;  
_Jasper speeding down a long road, his face set determinedly, weaving in and out of traffic to gain more distance quicker. He was in a hurry. Annoyed drivers honked their horns as he sped past, but he paid them not heed. His lips parted and he spoke two words; "I'm coming."_

My vision ended and I was forced back into reality, but now a brighter reality than before. My Jasper was coming for me!

It had begun to grow dark now, the rain still continued in much the same fashion as it had done all day. But now it was joined by dull, distant rolls of thunder to the west.

I sat as still as a statue waiting for him, just as I had done many years ago in that half empty diner in Philadelphia.

It was no surprise when a voice called my name. My real name.  
"Alice?!" What was a surprise however, was the urgency within the tone.

He rushed forward at break neck speed and swept me up into his strong muscular arms. Holding me so close that for a second I forgot that we were two people instead of one.

"Sweetheart I -" He began but I cut him off with my wail.

"Oh Jazz!" I buried my head deep into his marble chest as relief washed over me.

"Alice, " he whispered my name, pressing his smooth lips to the top of my head and kissing me. I felt his arms rock me gently as hundreds of emotions washed over me at once, and I knew that he was experiencing them with me. The sobs that had racked my petite frame before now returned.

He did not stop the onslaught, for which I was thankful for, he let it come. Here in his arms I was safer, stronger and more able to think this through than I had been all day. Every now and again he spoke words of encouragement and comfort to me, but for the most part he remained silent, holding me and listening.

When I had finished unleashing my emotional tsunami upon him, he placed his hand against my cheek, gently caressing it while he sent his own smoothing waves back to me.

Once or twice as he soothed me, I caught him reproachfully looking at my headstone.

"The absence of memories from a human life does in no way change you Alice. But if you wish we shall search for some more answers, more conclusive ones. If you feel you must know exactly why, then we shall find out."

I didn't answer, I couldn't for he had completely and utterly stolen my breath. Another rush of emotions assaulted me.

"Oh Jasper, I don't deserve you," I cried. Burying my head into the crevice of his neck, inhaling deeply the scent that was like heaven to me.

"As I don't deserve you." I was about to protest, but then he continued;

"And yet by the most golden of luck in the world, we seem to be bound to each other. Uncanny."

"Remarkable," I agreed.

He smiled down at me, clearly relieved to see that I had been soothed. I knew I had been right before in thinking that nothing other than what I had now mattered. Jasper was my proof, the sign that I needed.

"I love you Alice Cullen."

"As I love you Jasper Hale."

I took his hand; while the other still cradled me, and without thinking; I lent in and touched my lips to his, for the first time today, I felt hope. His lips responded to mine, moving in sync. I dislodged the gem like droplets that had gathered in is honey blond hair with my hand, and his fingers wound round mine, lacing out intertwined hands even tighter together.

It was a kiss that spoke a thousand words at once. Jasper was _my_ life, just as I were his. The two of us, misfits, the odd exceptions. We belonged to each other. Two pieces of the same puzzle, molded, shaped always with the other in mind. All of this now was meant to be. Nothing before or even after mattered.

I pulled away first, he did not protest and willing let me.

"I don't need any more answers, I have all those I need, right here," I traced the line of his cheekbone with my finger.

I bit my lip preparing myself to ask the question I was dreading.

"Does it matter? Does it matter that I know now?" His brow creased a little at my questions and then smoothed out.

"Not to us. Not to me and you, especially not to me, and not to our family. You are the same Alice I fell in love with, only now you are not quite as in the dark about your past as you were. The only person it matters to is you, sweetheart."

I smiled sadly.

"Perhaps it would have been better if I had never found out."

Jasper gave a small laugh, his chest rumbling underneath my head.

"You would have found out eventually, my love. You are far to inquisitive sometimes." I had to laugh with him.

"No, I think this was something you had to find out," Jasper mused aloud, "Something you were meant to know, so you could deal with. You say perhaps it would have been better if you had never found out. Maybe so, but you cannot deny to me that you would not have grown restless over the years. Have grown restless. Searching for something, anything that might help you to understand."

"No I cannot deny it," I admitted. "It just wasn't what I was expecting."

I was hoping that that darkness would have been replaced by perhaps a memory, so I could build a picture in my head to chase it away. But that wasn't the case. The darkness _was_ my memory, for that was all I had known.

"I know." His smooth lips kissed my cheek. "But none of our human lives turned out exactly as we planned, but now we have this one, our second chance; which is more than what a lot of people have. And since I get to spend it with you, I intend to male the most of it."

"As do I." He held me closer for a second.

"If you will permit me, there is something I feel I must do." He whispered gently, lowering me to the ground and setting me down upon my feet. He was not really waiting for the answer he knew I would give him, but at the same time he was allowing me to give it.

I was consumed by wonder immediately. He had not made a certain decision so I could not see what he was planning. The image of him running through a forest did not give me much inclination to his motives.

"I permit you."

With a swift kiss, he left my side. I stood alone, for maybe the space of a single heartbeat before he returned to me.

He took my hand in his and led me forward, a single red rose clasped lightly in his other. We moved at human speed.

The rain still fell around us both, and the thunder in the west was closer now. Dusk drew in.

He led me to my rather derelict stone, dropping my hand he stooped to place the rose before it. Only once glancing up at the writing.

"Hardly a fitting tribute," I heard him mumble.

His fingers were busy then, quickly easing a pattern into the stone just above it's original writing. I watched as his smooth calligrapher writing was carved into the stone as easy as if he had taken pen to paper.

Now as he stepped back I could admire his words. His writing stark in contrast to the untidy scrawl beneath it. My headstone now read; '_In Loving Memory of Mary Alice Brandon 1901-1920.'_

"Oh Jasper!" I launched myself at him, my arms encircling his muscular chest, and his wrapped around my waist.

"I love you in this life, I see no reason why I would not have loved you in that one."

I didn't know what to say, I was so overwhelmed. But since my man knew my emotions as well as he did. He took his unspoken thank you and gratitude from my complete lack of words.

"Come now, you have lingered here long enough. Let us go home to our family. Esme will surly be worried sick by now." Jasper shook his head slightly smiling.

"We had better hurry then." I would not see it done to have Esme's worry prolonged.

He took my hand in his, and together, we departed. I stole one last look back, preparing to leave whatever my life had been before where it belonged.

This was my life now. With him. With my family.

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**I would appreciate your opinions if you are willing to give them. If not, then thank you very much for taking the time out to read this.  
Was it completly horrendus?**


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